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Staycation Writing Diary: Day One

The spring semester is OVER, which means I get a couple of weeks to myself. I have a goal of finishing the current novel project before summer ends, and I need these weeks to get back into the groove. Actually, my vacation started last Friday, but I spent the weekend on stalling activities like buying a yard sale rug for my home office, joining Sisters in Crime, and then deciding my friend needed to join, too. That sort of thing. Today should have been REAL DEAL DAY 1 (and it might still happen), but we had a new roof installed. So, hammering and barking all day. And now this blog entry.

I have a great scene to work on, because it needs to be turned into at least two scenes. The original scene was fun because it was set in a creepy Chicago hotel I know, but now it looks like I’ll have to take my characters from the hotel to Loyola’s Signal Transduction Institute–a place and field of research I know zip about.

I am not superstitious, but character names and occupations come quickly to me, and I try not to mess with them. In this case, I wanted the new character to have an impressive affiliation, but the context was very cocktail party: “Dr. Blackwell is with the Signal Transduction Institute”–but, as with all draft details I plop in for casual ornamentation, this one came back to bite me. And quickly, too.

Oh, how I miss those summers of nothing but writing and drinking. Now, I work all year. And I drink less, so the writing would probably be much better. Such a shame. Hope it goes well for you! Keep us posted!